Diana (2013)

Diana Synopsis

Diana takes audiences into the private realm of one the world’s most iconic and inescapably public women -- the Princess of Wales, Diana (two-time Oscar® nominee NAOMI WATTS) -- in the last two years of her meteoric life. On the occasion of the 16th anniversary of her sudden death, acclaimed director Oliver Hirschbiegel (the Oscar®-nominated Downfall) explores Diana’s final rite of passage: a secret love affair with Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan (NAVEEN ANDREWS, “Lost,” The English Patient), the human complications of which reveal the Princess’s climactic days in a compelling new light.

eOne will release the much talked about drama in the United States on November 1st in limited nationwide release. Should things go well from there, Entertainment One will widen the pic’s distribution in the weeks that follow.

Instead of a sweeping account of the princess's entire life, Diana focuses on a very specific period, in which Diana was engrossed in her work against land mines, divorced from Prince Charles, and engaged in two different relationships. Naveen Andrews seems to have the much bigger part as Dr. Hasnat Khan

Everyone knows that when you hire a famous person to star in a biopic of another famous person, the first thing we all want to know is how convincingly one has managed to turn into the other. So in unveiling this first tease of the upcoming biopic Diana, Entertainment One has smartly kept Naomi Watts's face away from the camera until about halfway through, and only given us a close-up in the final moment, intended to make us all gasp and say "Oh my god, that's Diana!"

Earlier this year, Watts earned her second Academy Award nomination for her brave performance in the tsunami disaster movie The Impossible, but didn't walk away with the trophy. Could her follow-up portraying the People's Princess win her that so-far elusive Oscar?

It's been fifteen years since Diana's passing, and a new film from Oliver Hirschbiegel will explore what her final years were like. The biopic Diana stars Naomi Watts, and focuses on her activism against land mines and her tumultuous romantic relationship with Dr. Hasnat Khan. We got a glimpse of Watts in costume back in July, and now Kino Gallery has a collection of images from the set.

What's in a name? A lot, if that name is well known, and it seems likely that the name "Diana" is most associated with a certain princess whose life ended in a tragic car accident during the latter part of last century. Oliver Hirschbiegel's upcoming film, which aims to be a love story about Princess Diana's relationship with heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan, is looking to make better use of that name in its title.